The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) newly elected president, Tomislav Karamarko told the Croatian national television's news programme on Monday evening that the priority of his programme would be to position the HDZ as a centre-right popular party and to ensure the party unity.
He said that the HDZ would be a Democratic Christian party that would insist on "the correct definition of some values since the Homeland Defence War", and he ruled out any factions in the HDZ.
In response to the anchorwoman's comment that on Sunday's election convention, his candidate Ante Sanader did not succeed in becoming the party's Deputy President and that Drago Prgomet, the candidate of of his rival Milan Kujundzic, was elected to that post, Karamarko said he had congratulated Prgomet and that he recognised him as the democratically elected deputy president.
Karamarko expressed confidence that he would cooperate well with the party's new deputy president, adding that he had already talked with Prgomet on models for their cooperation.
Karamarko, who is at the helm of the strongest opposition party, said that that the beginning of the new government led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) had been not good as expected.
He said he wished that the government might succeed in its work as Croatia was his country and "it is good for all of us that the government makes it although indications are not optimistic".
Promising that he would run the HDZ more democratically than his predecessors, Karamarko said that all important decisions including personnel decisions would be made in the party's presidency.
As for the relations with Serbia in the light of the fact that Tomislav Nikolic won Sunday's presidential runoff, the HDZ leader said that it was a democratic decision made by the Serbian people and it was difficult for him to comment on that.
"If I may say, this decision was not to our liking... We know who Mr. Nikolic is, he was the closest associate of the Chetnik Vojvoda (duke) and he will have to wash up a part of his past if he wants to show a sort of his European orientation," Karamarko said, referring to the fact that Nikolic was the deputy president of the Serbian Radical part of Vojislav Seselj, indicted for war crimes against non-Serbs, until they fell out in 2008.
This will be certainly a departure from the policy pursued by (outgoing) President Boris Tadic, the Croatian opposition leader said expressing hope that there would be no problems in the Croatia-Serbia relations.
